The Art of Puking Your Business Identity Onto the Internet

Posted by Justin Smith at 17 July, 2007, 3:13 pm

Normally, I’d place an appropriate picture relating to the title here, but decided that this time it wouldn’t be prudent.

This post was spawned off of an article I read by Brian Brady on the new real estate weblogging 101 website. Although I didn’t completely agree with his perspective on SEO, I understand where he is coming from. Basically, his method is… “puke” out your picture and sales pitch to every imaginable website or online space that lets you have a free profile and see what sticks.

Brian does a heck of alot of writing. You can find his work regularly on his blog, the Bloodhound Blog, NELA, ActiveRain, and an occasional guest post on other real estate related blogs.

He claims to have had over 1,000 online inquiries in the past 12 months which is pretty impressive. On my real estate related profile radar, I’d probably place his online presence in the top 20 of all real estate related people.

So how is this done? How does the average real estate agent or loan officer develop that kind of online presence? I thought it would be helpful to make a list of many of the places you can create an online profile, and network with people. Some are obviously more successful than others when it comes to generating business, but for this model, we are using the “puke” method. Place yourself in as many places as possible, write new content like your life depended on it, get your face and message to as many people as possible, and see what happens…

Real Estate Related Websites: (in no particular order)

ActiveRain.com — Quickly becoming the mother of all real estate community websites. Create a profile, start blogging and networking, and create some referral business from other members around the country.

Localism.com — Tie into your Active Rain account, and post articles and pictures about your local community.

Zillow.com — Lots of options here: Contribute articles to Zillow’s Wiki, post your listings, and… uhhh… other people’s listings, chat on Zillow’s Discussion board, or contribute to a neighborhood page

Trulia.com — Answer real estate related questions from the general public.

RealEstateVoices — Digg for real estate. If it is eventually able to create some more traffic for itself, having a high ranked profile may come in handy.

Inman Wiki — Similar to Zillow’s. Contribute articles to the general public about RE.

Yahoo! Answers — Similar to Trulia. Start answering people’s questions on real estate.

WannaNetwork.com — A Myspace clone for real estate agents

There are alot of options for getting your face out into the RE.net… be creative. Blogging is obviously huge. Take a tip from some of the more prolific real estate writers out there: start networking and maybe you could start guest authoring posts on popular RE blogs.

Participate in the conversation! - Start commenting on real estate blogs & on message boards where people are asking real estate related questions. If you can successfully set yourself up as an expert on any given topic, you will get leads. If you don’t know where people are asking real estate questions online, try setting up a Google Alerts account, and tell it to search for instances where people type in questions like: “when should I buy a house?”. When you see someone asking a question like that, go see if you can help that person.

Real Estate Forums & Message Boards: Point2Agent, Yahoo!, RealEstateForum.com, REW, AgentsOnline.net, CREN, RIS Media, Flipping Pad, RealTown

Get Your Content out to the General Public!

There are so many websites and tools that you can use to promote your real estate business. I’ll try to stick to the sites that deal with social networking, article distribution, online communities etc.

Social Networking:

Facebook.com - There are many great tools that can turn facebook into a fantastic networking tool, and they are adding more all the time.

Myspace.com - I personally can’t stand all the slutty ads that are targeted at my demographic, but some agents swear by the value of networking to a younger crowd with this social networking giant

Linkedin.com - A more professional approach to networking. More of a B2B kind of service, but still a helpful tool.

Mybloglog.com, friendster, orkut, biznik, ning, squidoo, Gather, Yahoo! & MSN Groups… the list goes on & on & on.

There are so many great ideas out there for marketing yourself online. Social media, and online discussion are only a couple of the ways real estate agents are finding success.

I could probably add another 5 pages to this post, but I think I’ll just stop with the websites that I have seen real estate agents be successful on. Large lists make my brain hurt anyway.

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

Pingback by CoRE Link Post #51 | Carnival of Real Estate - Real Estate Blogging Tips and Tricks on July 29, 2007 @ 4:23 pm

Pingback by Are You Blogging For Speed? | BloodhoundBlog: Real estate marketing and technology blog | Realtors and real estate, mortgages, lending, investments on February 13, 2008 @ 11:27 pm

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Comments

Teresa Boardman July 21, 2007

There is an easier way to have an online presence. Write on a blog every day and keep it focused. I experimented with some “puking” and it just didn’t work as well as writing on my blog. But I always say do what works best for you.

Justin Smith July 21, 2007

Hi Teresa,
I tend to agree with you… but there seem to be alot of agents out there that have had success with social networking.

But I’ll take blogging over myspace any day.

ARDELL July 28, 2007

Justin,

I think it benefits lenders more than agents to puke, so Teresa and I would likely be in agreement, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great for Brian Brady and lenders. It’s also great for anyone who sells services to agents. But for agents…local is better, with some national recognition a plus, but not the main focus.

Jason July 30, 2007

I have not utilized theis precise method but I have had success by actively blogging and writing like my life depended on it. I have elevated my business to a whole new level of client by blogging regularly. I took some time off this Spring to catch up with work and I actually saw my business slow down.

I like this blog a lot and I have learned from reading today- I’ll be back!

john August 6, 2007

Great post. Thanks for all the tips and advice. We have a relatively new site, but are already seeing some good search engine positions, on the first page of Google for ‘finding foreclosures’ for instance. Please take a look at our site and let me know what you think: http://investmentpropertiesinfo.com/

Greg Rollett August 8, 2007

I think the initial overwhelming feeling of getting online is a bit much, but I do believe that you need to focus your efforts on a few sites. Your blog should be your number one resource and starting out, a good goal is one post a day along with daily pings. Choosing between social networks is hard, but with the right research and time management can be very rewarding. I personally am a fan of Myspace, since Myspace Marketing is my business. If you can get past the 13 year olds with not so nice pictures you will find an amazing demographic of college and post college individuals who could be of very high use to your office. Everything depends on who you are trying to target and how long you have to target them. Your time management is still priority number one!

Jasmine August 29, 2007

I’ve been using a social networking site for the past few weeks that I really like and I wouldn’t mind you adding it to your list! It’s beneficial for someone like me, someone who’s looking into getting into real estate investing. It seems like most of the other sites out there are just for real estate professionals, and not investors looking to expand their network! Check it out and add it if you don’t mind!

http://www.realedin.com/

Brian Brady October 6, 2007